Projects

The stories behind select projects

The Gothic revival building at 1 Spadina Crescent stands out for many reasons. Originally built as a Presbyterian school for Knox College in 1875, it now belongs to the University of Toronto and is the home of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Featuring a renovated interior and a new extension to the north, the site is one of the few exceptions to Toronto’s urban grid, offering an ovoid-shaped block of land around which busy traffic flows.
In the new, highly-integrated design, the building’s roof undulates, letting in natural light and functioning as a sort of drainage system. Water flows into cisterns that irrigate a series of gardens on the roof. And at ground level, there are virtual “walls” of green, appearing almost like living origami. Aldershot’s facility with green wall technology allowed it to mount a growing medium into an irrigated structure pitched at a 60-degree angle, making the plants appear almost vertical at eye-level. The result? An eye-catching, sculpted landscape providing an eye-catching green space for one of the leading schools of architecture in North America.

What was once Ontario’s favourite playground — with millions of visitors every year and entertainers like Ella Fitzgerald — Ontario Place had declined, becoming a virtual parking lot in desperate need of reinvention. But, following an innovative design by LANDinc, Aldershot Landscape set to work to transform the 7.5 acre site (with 600 metres of shoreline on Lake Ontario) into a charming waterfront park.